Talk about giving new meaning to the idea of a food court.
A food-delivery worker, with an order from McDonald’s in tow, made his way onto the court during the second half of a college basketball game between the Loyola Chicago Ramblers and Duquesne Dukes at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse on Duquesne’s Pittsburgh campus Wednesday night.
Initial reports said the delivery worker was affiliated with Uber Eats. But Austin Hansen, who works on content development for Loyola, tweeted that he was from DoorDash. He also said he suspected the whole thing was a prank.
Either way, the hard-to-fathom incident, which briefly stopped play, left the ESPN announcers covering the game finding it, well, hard to fathom.
“Was he going to deliver the McDonald’s to somebody on the court?” one announcer asked incredulously. He later added, “Maybe I’ll put my hand up. I’m getting a little hungry.”
On social media, the situation naturally had plenty of folks talking. As one person tweeted, “this is the kind of dedication I need from my (Uber Eats) drivers.” But others questioned if it was indeed a joke or marketing ploy of some kind.
Officials with Uber and Duquesne University didn’t immediately respond to MarketWatch requests for comment. A DoorDash spokesperson declined to comment.
Uber Eats did send out a tweet that indicated its pride in the delivery-person’s dedication.
Of course, food-delivery workers receive all kinds of unusual requests. On a Reddit thread, some shared their stories.
“I once delivered food to someone who lived in an apartment directly above the restaurant they ordered from,” one noted.
Others pointed to how they have delivered orders just for soda or a single cookie.
There are also instances of extreme deliveries. In Block Island, a small island community in Rhode Island, Chinese food has been delivered by plane, for example.
Abby Schnable, who covers college basketball for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, reported that the delivery worker did eventually find his customer in the arena. In any event, the situation didn’t seem to faze Duquesne, the home team. It went on to win the game 72-58.
